Punjab and Haryana each hold 24.5 per cent — equal partners in an airport that serves both states and the Union Territory of Chandigarh, itself the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana.
A new road from the Chandigarh entry point, running along Defence land, serves Panchkula and Chandigarh commuters — not Punjab’s.
The existing road network through Mohali does serve Punjab towns reasonably well.
The item was dropped from the agenda entirely, with a note that it be “examined ab initio” by Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, the Ministry of Defence and ISCS together.
That old terminal had an entry from the Chandigarh side, which served Haryana residents naturally.
The Shaheed Bhagat Singh International Airport at Mohali is, on paper, a shared asset. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) holds a 51 per cent stake. Punjab and Haryana each hold 24.5 per cent — equal partners in an airport that serves both states and the Union Territory of Chandigarh, itself the joint capital of Punjab and Haryana. Yet when it came to building a new, shorter road to that very airport, one partner stepped forward and agreed to pay everything, and the other walked out of the room.
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The question that Chandigarh Tricity residents are asking: why?
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Also read: When Punjab said no, Haryana yes: Here is new airport road that changes everything for Chandigarh Tricity flyers
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11 years later, Chandigarh, Panchkula and Zirakpur to finally get shorter route to Mohali airport
PUNJAB’S CASE: WE COME FROM MOHALI SIDE
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Punjab’s position, stated plainly at a high-level inter-state meeting and recorded in official documents accessed exclusively by The Tribune, rests on a single geographic argument: Punjab’s residents already access the airport from the Mohali side. A new road from the Chandigarh entry point, running along Defence land, serves Panchkula and Chandigarh commuters — not Punjab’s.
Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann put it bluntly: “We are going through great economic stress and, therefore, are not able to participate in any project.”
Punjab’s argument has a surface logic to it. The existing road network through Mohali does serve Punjab towns reasonably well. The pain of a missing direct route is felt most acutely in Panchkula, eastern Chandigarh, Zirakpur and the Kalka-Shimla Highway belt — most of the areas that are geographically in Haryana’s orbit, or in Chandigarh, which is the joint capital of both states.
But the argument has a significant hole in it.
The same official documents show that the new route will reduce distances from Zirakpur — which lies in Punjab — from 13.7 km to 9.6 km, from Mohali from 16 km to 13.1 km, and from Mohali’s Kisan Bhawan IT Park area from 20 km to 17 km. The Kalka-Shimla Highway, also largely a Punjab and Himachal Pradesh corridor, will see distances drop from 11.7 km to 9.6 km.
Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini made exactly this point during the discussion — that the new road would save distance for Mohali and Zirakpur residents too. Punjab did not engage with the numbers. CM Mann simply repeated his state’s position and closed the door.
THE COST-SHARE IDEA NOBODY PURSUED
Interestingly, a middle path was suggested — and ignored. At the 29th meeting of the Northern Zonal Council, held on September 20, 2019, under the chairmanship of the Union Home Minister Amit Shah at Chandigarh, Special Secretary ISCS floated what he called a “top of the head idea”: cost sharing proportionate to population and distance benefit — with Haryana contributing more since it benefits more, but Punjab contributing something since it benefits too.
The idea found no takers. Punjab refused even a proportionate contribution. The item was dropped from the agenda entirely, with a note that it be “examined ab initio” by Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, the Ministry of Defence and ISCS together. That re-examination took seven more years to materialise.
HARYANA’S RS 60-CRORE ALTERNATIVE — THE PLAN NOBODY REMEMBERS
What is less well known is that even before the full-blown alternate road proposal took its current shape, Haryana CM had, at the 2019 Northern Zonal Council meeting, flagged a far cheaper interim option: a mere Rs 60 crore plan to build an overbridge over a nallah in Sector 48, Chandigarh, combined with an underpass below the railway line near a village and the STP Plant in the area.
This modest proposal would have significantly reduced distance even without acquiring defence land. It was never acted upon — swallowed by the same inter-state inertia that buried the larger project.
HARYANA’S CASE: OUR PEOPLE CANNOT WAIT
Haryana’s decision to go it alone, bearing every rupee of the cost, is rooted in practical compulsion as much as political will. The people of Panchkula — Haryana’s largest urban centre bordering Chandigarh — have had no direct short route to the airport since November 11, 2015, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new terminal and the old domestic terminal on the IAF base was simultaneously shut down. That old terminal had an entry from the Chandigarh side, which served Haryana residents naturally. Its closure marooned them.
For over a decade, every Panchkula resident travelling to the airport has had to cover extra kilometres, navigate Mohali’s road network, and compete for road space with Punjab-side traffic. Haryana calculates that the economic and electoral cost of continued inaction now outweighs the financial cost of building the road alone.
Haryana CM Saini has approved the proposal without waiting for Punjab or the UT to come on board, directing the Civil Aviation Department to proceed with filing the Ministry of Defence application, acquiring 38 acres of defence land on a cash basis, and bearing all construction costs including the mandated 450-metre underpass near the ILS and CAT-II navigation infrastructure.
CHANDIGARH’S CONSPICUOUS SILENCE
There is a third party whose position deserves scrutiny: Chandigarh itself. The Union Territory — administered directly by the Centre and serving as the joint capital of both Punjab and Haryana — has no recorded financial commitment to the new road, even though the alignment passes through its geographic jurisdiction and its residents stand to benefit substantially. The UT’s Deputy Commissioner Nishant Kumar Yadav convened the key recent meeting that revived the project, and SDM East Chandigarh Kushpreet was among those present. But Chandigarh’s financial role, if any, remains unannounced.
THE LAND PROBLEM HARYANA CANNOT SOLVE ALONE
There is one awkward twist in Haryana’s go-it-alone strategy. The 38 acres of land the road requires belongs to the Ministry of Defence. The MoD offers three modes of land transfer: cash payment, exchange of equivalent land, or provision of equivalent infrastructure. Land exchange would normally be the preferred option — but it is impossible here. The land falls under the jurisdiction of Chandigarh and Punjab. Haryana has no adjacent land to offer in exchange. It must pay cash.
This means Haryana — which does not own, control or administer the land its road will pass through — must first get MoD’s formal go-ahead, then pay market price for 38 acres in one of the country’s most land-scarce urban regions, and then build the road at its own expense. It is a significant undertaking for a state that is not even the primary territorial custodian of the corridor.
THE LONG PAPER TRAIL OF INACTION
The official record paints a dispiriting picture of how inter-state paralysis works in practice. After the 2019 Northern Zonal Council meeting produced no outcome, Haryana’s Chief Secretary wrote to Punjab’s Chief Secretary on November 21, 2019, proposing a fresh meeting to explore alternate alignments — including a route through villages Jagatpura and Kambala near Sector 48, Chandigarh, or through the Mohali Railway Station area. Punjab’s Chief Secretary replied on January 27, 2020, and noted that no meeting notice had been received. The meeting was never held.
Meanwhile, Punjab — through GMADA — quietly proceeded to build its own parallel road from Bawa White House Crossing to Airport Crossing: an 8.5-km stretch running alongside the main airport road on the Mohali side, with 90 per cent of the work now complete. This road benefits Punjab commuters but does nothing for Panchkula or eastern Chandigarh.
WHAT THE NUMBERS SAY ABOUT FAIRNESS
Punjab holds a 24.5 per cent equity stake in the airport. Haryana holds the same. The Centre, through AAI, holds 51 per cent. By any logic of proportionate benefit and shared ownership, Punjab should be at the table for any connectivity investment that serves the airport’s catchment. The new road will serve both states. Yet Haryana, the smaller equity partner by area and population in the Tricity context, has agreed to shoulder the entire burden of a project that should, by rights, be a shared endeavour.
Whether Punjab reconsiders its position — particularly once the road is built, its traffic grows, and its benefits to Mohali and Zirakpur residents become undeniable — remains to be seen. For now, the arithmetic of inter-state partnership at Chandigarh’s airport tells its own story.
